him at their very first meeting, and now that they
had become husband and wife, she loved him more than ever. It is small
wonder that the thought of the way in which he had been suddenly torn
from her, on the eve of their wedding journey, brought tears to her
eyes.

Presently she regained her composure and looked at the sheet of paper
which the Prefect had handed to her. It contained but a few words:
"Proceed to the Hotel Metropole, Brussels. Take a room in the name of
Grace Ellicott, and wait further instructions." That was all--no hint of
how or when she and Richard were to meet, or what had been the cause of
their separation. Once more the cruelty of the situation brought tears
to her eyes. While feeling in her handbag for her handkerchief, she drew
out the small silver ring which the Prefect had handed to her at the
last moment. "Trust any one," he had said, "who comes to you with such a
token as this." She examined the ring carefully, but the singular device
worked in gold upon the silver band, meant nothing to her. At length she
placed the ring carefully upon her finger, and proceeded to cover it by
putting on her glove.

For a long time she sat, speculating upon the strange workings of fate,
which doomed her to be thus speeding alone to Brussels, instead of to
Cherbourg, _en route_ to America, with Richard by her side. The sight of
two lovers, who boarded the train at St. Quentin, increased her
dissatisfaction. They came into the compartment, evidently quite wrapped
up in each other, and even the presence of a third person did not
prevent them from holding each other's hands under the cover of a
friendly magazine, and gazing at each other with longing eyes. Grace was
quite unable to endure the sight of their happiness--she turned away and
buried herself in her thoughts.

Presently the adventure-loving side of her nature began to assert
itself. Richard had been sent on a mission of the greatest
importance--one involving, Monsieur Lefevre had told her, the honor of
both his country and himself. And she was to share it--to take part in
its excitement, its dangers. The thought stirred all her love of the
mysterious, the unusual. After all, since she had become the wife of a
man whose profession in life was the detection of crime, should she not
herself take an interest, an active part in his work, and thereby
encourage and assist him? The thought made her impatient of all
delay--she felt herself almost trying to